


The One Bathtub

by jonesandashes



Category: RED (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesandashes/pseuds/jonesandashes
Summary: “I did have dinner plans,” Han said, grudgingly, and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The One Bathtub

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).



This was taking far too long.

Victoria had set up camp across the street from a lovely little hotel, where a dreadful man named Gregory Adams was staying. Right across from his window, in fact. She’d waited all evening for a clear shot of him, but none came, and eventually her elbows were getting stiff from holding up the rifle and her back was getting sore from all this.

“Bugger this,” she decided, and gathered up her things. If Gregory Adams wasn’t going to give her an opening on his own, she would just go make one herself.

Victoria picked the lock, slipped into the hotel room, and lead entirely by instinct looked directly at the shadows by the curtains across the way, where Han Cho Bai was standing with a gun pointed directly at her.

“Han!” Victoria whispered, delighted. “How on earth did you slip past me?"

Very slowly, Han moved out of the shadow. “I’m very good,” he said. Victoria noted that the bathroom door was closed, light visible under it. She pointed at it with her Beretta. 

“He’s in there,” Han confirmed.

“How _long_ has he been in there?” Victoria said.

“It's been ages. Were you planning something special, or can we just take care of it?”

“No," Han said, grudgingly enough that he probably had been. But then he added, more thoughtful: "I did have dinner plans," and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations. 

The gentle sizzle of a body dissolving was the first clue that something had gone amiss - quite distinct from the sounds of bubbles in a bath, no matter what anyone else said. Han not immediately moving into a killing strike was the second, and poor old Gregory Adams sloughing away in the tub was the third.

“Oh, boo,” said Victoria. “Really, there’s nothing worse than putting in all the work and having someone else swoop in right at the exciting bit.”

They frowned down at the grisly concoction for a bit with professional curiosity, and then at the quite small bathroom, with no discernible other exits than the single door, and then without speaking they moved out into the main room to frown at the hotel room door, and then the single window.

Han opened his mouth.

“No, dear boy,” said Victoria. “I was across the street all night. No one went through that window.”

“I did.”

“No one other than you, then. If neither of us saw anything, then our culprit was already inside the apartment when you entered this evening, and when I set up shop this afternoon.”

“And if we didn’t see them leave,” Han said, “they must still be here.”

“Oh, how lovely. A locked room mystery. You know, I just finished rereading a John Dickson Carr.”

Han, apparently no friend to the esteemed detective Dr. Fell, began to prowl about the apartment. Victoria switched out her Beretta for the MP5K, and joined him in their little game of hide and seek.

*

The joy of an impossible crime was, of course, in the solving of it. When they met for the third time under the living room clock, the sheen of excitement had worn thin, and by the fifth it had vanished entirely. They eventually landed back in the bathroom. Victoria perched on the lip of the tub, hands folded in her lap. Han leaned against the sink. Neither suggested they call it a day; where the excitement had dropped away, a cold hard need to not be outsmarted had risen up in its place.

“This is less fun than I anticipated,” Victoria admitted.

“The contract, or playing detective?”

“Playing detective, dear. Don’t be ghoulish.” She sighed, casting about the room once again for something she’d missed. There was nothing. The slippery bastard hadn’t even spilled any lye. “Do you suppose he could have been drugged? Bath already drawn, climbed in without noticing?”

Han shook his head. “He seemed alert when he went in. Good balance. Did thirty minutes of yoga.”

“He was good, wasn’t he.”

“Very flexible for his age,” Han agreed.

“Shame you didn’t just off him during downward dog. Could have saved us some trouble.”

“Shame you were across the street, watching through the window, preventing me from just killing him during downward dog.”

“You spotted me across the alley, and then unknowingly spent 90 minutes in a three-room hotel suite with the assassin who murdered your mark? I don't know whether to be disappointed in you or myself, Han.”

She held up a hand before he could answer. "That was rhetorical, dear."

*

To be thorough, Victoria stole a housekeeping keycard and nosed around all the adjacent suites. Nothing was amiss there, either, aside from the careless mess 614 had made of their kitchenette in an apparent attempt at Bolognese. No tip left, either, the brutes.

“I’ve literally killed people with more consideration for staff,” Victoria said, after returning to Suite 0 and updating Han on her findings. She had found him perched precariously on the arms of a chair in the middle of the sitting room, inspecting the popcorn ceiling.

He gave her a sidelong look. “Okay,” he said.

It was easy to forget that beneath all of Han’s blustering about murder and stealing planes, there lived the ghost of a straight-laced NIS agent who cracked morbid jokes with his coworkers to survive but felt bad about it afterward, which Victoria absolutely did not.

"You know," she said, conversationally, "sometimes I wonder what I've encountered more of: spies or burned spies."

"Mmm," grunted Han, noncommital.

An old friend in the acquisitions arm of MI6 always said that the recruiter's the holy trifecta -- precision, intelligence, and deep-seated nonchalance regarding violence -- was a good predictor for success but not for defection. Being a true believer in one’s work, on the other hand? Much more intriguing as a correlation. The same ingredients that produced an effective, sweet man like, say, Francis could also sour into a person with lofty plans and a pocket full of cyanide.

“Have you had run-ins with Alden?” said Han, when Victoria shared this insight. He reached out a hand and Victoria put a knife into it so that he could stab a neat hole into the ceiling. They waited, but nothing bled out of it, which was a little deflating.

“CSIS Alden?” Victoria said. She took her knife back. “Once or twice.”

“He went rogue for money and power,” Han said, mouth twisted with disdain. Not belief in anything. Just obnoxious cars and private planes.”

“Mmm,” said Victoria. Her sympathy must have seemed a touch thin, though, because his eyes narrowed. He hopped down from the chair.

“Completely different!” Han was one of the most elegant assassins in the world and out of a professional respect for what she’d heard the man could do with a soft jugular and a paper crane, Victoria would not have described his tone here as _squawking,_ despite that being what it was. “The cars and the planes are coincidental. I was _betrayed._ My life ruined, burned to down to nothing, all those _years_ of-”

“Yes, dear,” Victoria tutted. She patted his arm and then followed him when he stalked back into the bathroom. He regarded the soaker tub intently, arms folded across his chest.

Victoria leaned against the sink and tipped her head back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Han move again, this time to lean over the tub and twist the tap on. Water gushed out of the spout, disturbing the gently sizzling waters.

Whatever he was hoping to accomplish with this, it didn't work; Han made a frustrated noise and shut off the tap, leaving dear old Mr Adams gently bobbing in the waves.

But there was something not quite right about it, not quite…. _Aha._ There! Near the head of the tub, a small stretch of black plastic poked up through the water. Like a little stick, or a very small pipe. 

Or a straw. 

It did not bob gently in the waves.

“Oh,” Victoria whispered. “Well aren’t we resourceful.” Han snapped to attention.

Their assassin must have had on a whole bloody dive suit under there, to avoid becoming part of the soup. Interesting approach. Bit gruesome, though.

She straightened and collected her MP5K. Han rolled up a small square of tissue between his fingers, and then very carefully leaned over the tub. He gingerly tucked it into the straw opening, straightened, and stepped back, adjusting his suit jacket.

Victoria tugged him back toward the door, out of what she estimated was about to be a splash zone.

“Come out, come out,” Victoria said.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like murder cozies! The book Victoria references is John Dickson Carr's _The Three Coffins_ , which is also where the title to this story comes from.


End file.
